Content might be king… but the process of planning, creating and distributing content effectively can be complex and time-consuming to say the least.
Many content marketing teams still operate on the basis of emails going back and forth, with a disparate array of spreadsheets and documents to try to keep everything in check and moving forward.
In other words… various degrees of chaos!
Feeling overwhelmed by content marketing? Content planner software helps give back some control and streamlines the whole process.Click To Post On
But there is an alternative. Content planner software exists to give you back some control and help streamline the whole process.
In this post, we explore 5 of the top tools currently available, showing you how they can help you collaborate on, plan, create and track the performance of your content far more efficiently.
But first, let’s just define exactly what content planner software actually is…
What Is Content Planner Software?
Good content requires planning, which can include the whole content management process such as:
- Creating a content calendar or social media posting schedule, which may require input from different team members in terms of ideas and suitable scheduling…
- Creating the content itself, which can require input from numerous people and the ability to manage that workflow—for example, for a blog, you may have different contributors, editors, graphic designers, and others, all of whom need to be coordinated…
- Publishing and distributing the content…
- Repurposing that content into different formats for multiple purposes and varied platforms afterwards, which can involve multiple different processes that need managing…
- Tracking performance via suitable metrics and feeding that into the planning process to facilitate improvements.
No longer quite as simple as just creating a quick blog post, is it?
This can all add up to quite a headache to try to manage manually, to say the least, and so content planner software has been created to help.
Good content requires planning, which doesn't just mean the content itself. It includes your content calendar; publishing, repurposing and redistributing your content; and tracking performance.Click To Post On
It’s designed to help individuals and teams streamline and optimize the whole process, making it a lot more efficient, easier to keep on track, and generally helping to facilitate the production of high-quality content.
It also means businesses can achieve more with content marketing than they would otherwise be able to without such software.
Who Needs Content Planner Software?
Generally speaking, the only type of business that wouldn’t benefit from content planner software is one that has minimal content needs, such as businesses that don’t use or barely take advantage of content marketing.
Otherwise, it’s likely to prove highly beneficial and useful, such as for:
- Content-driven businesses that use content as a core marketing channel, with input often from multiple people across their organization…
- Bloggers and influencers, helping them to plan and schedule content in advance, post consistently, and track ideas and content performance…
- Creative agencies and freelancers who work with multiple clients, helping them to manage multiple different workflows…
- Ecommerce businesses, helping them with content such as product descriptions, blog posts, social media content and so on.
5 Top Content Planner Software Tools
1. CoSchedule
Overview
CoSchedule is widely recognized as a top content planner software tool, helping teams to create, schedule and publish content across multiple channels.
Features include a content calendar, providing a visual overview of content you’re planning to publish, such as due dates, topics and who is assigned to what.
Their basic version of this is free (referred to as their Marketing Calendar), with the Pro version and their Marketing Suite product adding functionality such as:
- Work management…
- Asset management…
- Social media automation…
- Content management…
- Optimization tools…
- Analytics capabilities.
The software also integrates with other tools such as WordPress, HubSpot, various social media platforms, and multiple email campaign services.
Why CoSchedule Might Be a Good Choice
- Intuitive to use
- Integrates with other marketing tools
- Versatile set of features
- Good documentation and customer support
Pricing
- Marketing Calendar product is free
- Pro version at $39/month per user, less on annual plans
- Marketing Suite pricing requires a sales conversation
2. Kapost
Overview
Kapost was acquired back in 2019 by Upland Software, a provider of cloud-based enterprise work management software.
As such, the software is focused at the enterprise market, and is less suitable for smaller businesses.
In terms of content planning, the Studio module within the software enables users to:
- Plan out their content campaigns…
- Track content throughout its lifecycle…
- Publish and distribute content to different channels.
For example, it gives you:
- A single place to look where you can see content that’s been approved and view their version histories…
- The ability for team members to collaborate with each other via the software…
- The ability to distribute to multiple channels via the content calendar.
Their Canvas module helps with overall content strategy, including building content and managing resource allocation.
Analytics capabilities are provided via its Insights tool, helping you to analyze content performance and judge long-term ROI.
Why Kapost Might Be a Good Choice
If you work within a content marketing team in a larger organization, Kapost can help with the whole content management lifecycle, from the initial ideas about the type of content to create right through to distribution and performance tracking.
It’s not aimed at smaller businesses, so other solutions may be more appropriate.
Pricing
Pricing information isn’t published on the website, prospective customers can instead book a demo and talk with their sales team.
However, other online sources suggest pricing starts at $3,500 per month.
3. DivvyHQ
Overview
DivvyHQ is one of the most popular content planner software tools. It’s designed to help you plan content, ‘Divvy’ it up between team members, and then manage the whole content creation process.
For example, it gives you multiple content calendars, allows team members to communicate and collaborate with each other on content projects, and helps manage workflows to facilitate content creation.
Previous content that’s been created gets stored as assets that can then be filtered and searched when you need to find something again.
You also get analytics so you can judge the performance of your content and adjust accordingly.
And it has over 1,000 integrations such as with social platforms, file storage tools like Box or Google Drive, WordPress and so on.
Why DivvyHQ Might Be a Good Choice
- Easy to use, and scalable for teams of different sizes
- Makes team collaboration easy
- Helps keep your content organized so you don’t lose track of assets
- Provides useful analytics
Pricing
- You can test out DivvyHQ with a 14-day free trial
- Their Content Planner tool is priced at $89 per user per month, with a discount for annual billing
- Their Content Operations Suite is a more tailored solution and requires a conversation with their sales team
4. GatherContent
Overview
GatherContent is a comprehensive content planning tool that aims to replace the usual chaos of content creation and management with proper organization and clarity.
A UK-based company, it serves thousands of companies and organizations around the world like Intel, the NHS, Ogilvy and top universities.
It integrates with a range of other tools like Slack, WordPress, MS Word and more.
In terms of content planning specifically, the software provides a content calendar along with other features such as content templates, a content style guide, the ability to assign items in the content creation process to different team members, and more.
Essentially, it’s designed to bring the whole content creation process into one platform to make content easier to plan and manage.
Why GatherContent Might Be a Good Choice
- Content review features allows for easy feedback from team members
- Version control means teams can revert to a previous version of a piece of content if needed
- Helps teams save time and keep content consistent through their customizable templates
Pricing
GatherContent comes with a 14-day free no-limits trial.
While other tools are often based on per-seat pricing, GatherContent bases its pricing instead on the number of projects you want to run, with higher price points facilitating a higher number of projects and items per project.
Access starts at $109 per month, up to $879 per month, with discounts for paying annually. A custom enterprise-level plan is also available.
5. StoryChief
Overview
StoryChief is another well-known content planner software tool with a comprehensive set of features to help content teams create, collaborate on and distribute content, and is used by over 5,000 organizations around the world.
It comes with a publishing and planning calendar, helping teams to plan and publish anything from a social post to a full content campaign, with content published automatically on the applicable channel at the relevant time.
The software integrates with over 1,000 different apps, from CRMs to project management tools, to other tools like Salesforce, HubSpot and Slack.
Analytics and performance insights help indicate which content is performing best, and provides metrics such as views and reads, and scores for SEO and readability.
Overall, it’s a very comprehensive content planner software tool that takes you from ideation to collaborative content creation to publishing and analytics.
Why StoryChief Might Be a Good Choice
- Provides centralized content collaboration and management
- Allows you to publish content based on your schedule across multiple platforms directly from the tool, such as blogs and social media platforms
- Provides built-in SEO tools
- User-friendly interface makes it easy to get started quickly
Pricing
You can test out StoryChief for free with a 7-day free trial. Pricing then starts at around $40 per month for individual users or $220 per month for marketing teams.
To Conclude
Whatever the size of your content team, content planner software is invaluable for streamlining and optimizing the content management process, helping you not just to plan but also create, publish and analyze content effectively.
The alternative is usually a rather messy mixture of spreadsheets, documents and emails flying back and forth between team members, making the whole process more difficult and time consuming, and hindering your ability to make great content.
This post has provided a range of different tools to help not just lighten the load, but likely transform your ability to plan, create and publish content, and then analyze its performance.
The alternative to content planner software is usually a messy mix of spreadsheets, documents, emails and so on. Appropriate software helps streamline the whole process.Click To Post On
